Redlining in Cedar Grove

The Caddo Parish Civil Rights Heritage Trail project is expanding its scope with a new series designed to help historic villages, towns, neighborhoods, and/or cities in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, investigate three different versions of their communities: the past, the present, and the future. Team members include Dr. Gary Joiner, Mik Barnes, Jaclyn Tripp, Dr. Laura Meiki, Dr. Jolivette Anderson-Douong, Dr. Amy Rosner, Dr. Rolonda Teal, and Brenton Metzler.

The team is now focusing on the history of the Cedar Grove neighborhood.

In the first article in the series on Cedar Grove, Dr. Gary Joiner (Professor of History at LSU Shreveport) showed us how a social movement in 1911 Shreveport drastically changed Cedar Grove.

In the second article of the series, we learned how Shreveport became a hub for automobile production in the early days of the horseless carriage.

The third article of the series examined how manufacturing changed in Cedar Grove after automobile production ended.

For the fourth article in our series on Cedar Grove, Dr. Gary Joiner took readers back to 1905-1910, when Cedar Grove sprung up in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, as a small oil boom town.

The fifth article on Cedar Grove explored how Cedar Grove was settled after the Louisiana Purchase, how streets became bisected in Cedar Grove, and described the topography of the little community that later became a Shreveport community.

We will learned about how glass coffins were once fashionable in the United States in the sixth article in the series, and we learned about a glass coffin factory that once operated in Cedar Grove.

In the seventh article in the series, Dr. Gary Joiner discusses how redlining harmed Cedar Grove.

---

SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Is it possible to point to a single factor that doomed Cedar Grove from recovering its vibrancy from the first third of the twentieth century? The answer is unequivocally yes.

The US Government created the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) as part of the New Deal programs in the 1930s. The intent appeared noble: to rescue clients and banks from bankruptcy and catastrophic failure. In practice, however, they assured strong banks would mitigate potential losses by protecting their best accounts.

Any property with a mortgage in a “good” neighborhood was safe. Any street with such housing was deemed acceptable for long-term loans. Any properties not meeting the highest standards became increasingly suspect. Any streets where people lived who were not White Anglo-Saxon Protestant were suspect and affected adjoining “good” properties. The reasons given for rating neighborhoods are overtly bigoted from today’s lens.

The HOLC surveyed 239 cities nationwide to determine the viability of granting or continuing mortgages. Only two cities in Louisiana was surveyed–New Orleans and Shreveport.

The HOLC came to Shreveport in 1940 and left chaos in its wake. The survey team, by practice, none of whom were from our region, created 25 neighborhoods. Twenty-three were in Shreveport, and two were in Bossier City. They used the 1930 Decennial Census to identify streets. They also used local street maps or Sanborn Fire Insurance Mao Company’s index pages. They used the local Globe Map Company street map of Shreveport.

The surveyors, called valuators, artificially ranked neighborhoods by letter grade, A-D. Class A was the best, and Class D was “hazardous” and uninsurable. They created artificial boundaries that suited their purposes. They also did not cover all areas within cities. They flagged industrial areas (appropriately) as non-residential but penalized adjoining residential neighborhoods as undesirable. When they canvassed Cedar Grove, they ended the survey at 79^th Street.

The canvassers deemed Cedar Grove below the street to be primarily rural.

The industrial northwestern area of Cedar Grove was hatched, indicating the proper extremities. The remainder from Hollywood Avenue/Pierremint/Southfield, south to 71^st Street, was coded  Yellow C-7, except for the area south of 65^th Street, midway between Fairfield Avenue and Thornhill Avenue, west to the previous town boundary and south to 71^st Street. This portion was coded Red D-9. This extended south to 80^th Street and east to Linwood Avenue.

C-7
Population 90% white, 10% negro – composed of middle class salaried workers, mechanics and quite a few tradesmen who maintain their business in this section. It is the best section of Cedar Grove, formerly a separate municipality. Predominant type of building is single family, with a small commercial area along 70th street and Fairfield street. Area is about 60% built up. Age of properties 1 to 25 years only fairly well maintained. No shifting of population.
 
D-9
Population 60% white 40% negro. This section is the Southern part of Cedar Grove. About 20% built up. Population consists mostly of wage earners of lower to middle class, some salaried workers, laborers and mechanics. White population resides West of Railroad. Single family buildings predominate. Age of properties 1 to 20 years with white property fairly well maintained and negro property poorly maintained. Section is at the extreme end of the city limits, somewhat inaccessible.

Cedar Grove has been an integrated, working/middle-class neighborhood from its inception. The harm done by the HOLC in 1940 still rings true throughout the decades. Redlining harmed its residents by preventing them from obtaining mortgages and/or low-interest mortgages.

According to the 2020 Decennial Census, Cedar Grove’s population is healthy but older:

Total population	4161
White	371
White %	8.92
All persons Black	3630
All Person Black %	87.24
Asian	14
Hispanic	120
18+ Population	3210
Housing Units	2260
Occupied	1757
Unoccupied	503

59th Street to Hollywood Ave/Pierremont/Southfield East. Digital composite map Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Company plates from 1935. Plates 233 and 234 in Volume Two, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Company 1935 maps of Shreveport, Louisiana. Sanborn Map Collection in the Library of Congress. Red lines are neighborhood boundaries. Gray polygons are building layer objects from the City of Shreveport GIS —georeferencing, research, and Cartography by Gary D. Joiner, Ph.D.

71st Street West to 73rd Street West. Digital composite map Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Company plates from 1935. Plates 241 and 242 in Volume Two, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Company 1935 maps of Shreveport, Louisiana. Sanborn Map Collection in the Library of Congress. Red lines are neighborhood boundaries. Gray polygons are building layer objects from the City of Shreveport GIS —georeferencing, research, and Cartography by Gary D. Joiner, Ph.D.

73rd Street East to 76th Street East. Digital composite map Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Company plates from 1935. Plates 240, 242, and 244 in Volume Two, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Company 1935 maps of Shreveport, Louisiana. Sanborn Map Collection in the Library of Congress. Red lines are neighborhood boundaries. Gray polygons are building layer objects from the City of Shreveport GIS —georeferencing, research, and Cartography by Gary D. Joiner, Ph.D.

78th Street West to 80th Street West. Digital composite map Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Company plates from 1935. Plates 242 and 244 in Volume Two, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Company 1935 maps of Shreveport, Louisiana. Sanborn Map Collection in the Library of Congress. Red lines are neighborhood boundaries. Gray polygons are building layer objects from the City of Shreveport GIS —georeferencing, research, and Cartography by Gary D. Joiner, Ph.D.

---

Sources:

Library of Congress, Introduction to the [Sanborn Map] Collection. https://www.loc.gov/collections/sanborn-maps/articles-and-essays/introduction-to-the-collection/

“Fighters; Louisiana Campaign Gains Heat From Charges, but Effect on Primaries Is Doubtful. Home Rule Chief Issue,” New York Times, December 8, 1935, Section E, Page 11.

See Richard L. Engstrom, “Home Rule in Louisiana—Could This Be the Promised Land?” Louisiana History, Vol. 17, No. 4, 1976, pp. 431-455.

“Cedar Grove Pastor Asks Probe of Riot,” Shreveport Journal, January 7, 1936, Page 11.

For an extensive investigation of housing discrimination by the Federal Government during the 1930s and since, see Gary D. Joiner, “Redlining in Shreveport,” https://www.ktalnews.com/louisianas-lost-history/history-of-redlining-in-shreveport-part-1/  or https://www.yahoo.com/news/history-redlining-shreveport-part-1-175358147.html